The Ne'er-Do-Well eBook

“When Panama seceded. She manipulated that,
or at least Steve Cortlandt did under her direction.
She was the brains of the whole affair, however, and
those New York lawyers merely did what she told them.
It was one of the cleverest exploits on record.
Colombia wouldn’t let us build the Canal, so
Panama seceded. War was declared, but the United
States interfered in time to prevent bloodshed.
One Chinaman was killed, I believe, by dropping a flat-iron
on his toe, or something, and by the time the excitement
had died out we had begun digging. She knows
Central America like the palm of her hand. When
she says Kirk Anthony wants a position, we hirelings
jump about and see that he gets it. Oh, you’ll
have any job you want.”

“Well!” The recipient of this good news
congratulated himself silently. “I wish
you’d tell me something more about her.”

“There isn’t time just now; our motor
is waiting. But we have the whole afternoon ahead
of us.”

The two passed through the railroad gates and took
their places in the little car. When they were
under way, Runnels went on: “I’m
supposed to show you this end of the work and tell
you what it all means.”

“Then please start at the beginning. You
see, I probably know less about it than anybody living.”

“Of course you know the general lay-out?”

“I tell you I don’t know a thing.
There’s no use four-flushing.”

Runnels smiled at this candor. “Well, the
ditch will be about fifty miles long, and, roughly
speaking, the work is in three parts—­the
dredging and harbor-building at sea-level on each end
of the Canal, the lock-work, and the excavations on
the upper levels. That dam you saw building at
Gatun will form a lake about thirty miles long—­quite
a fish-pond, eh? When a west-bound ship arrives,
for instance, it will be raised through the Gatun locks,
three of them, and then sail along eighty-five feet
above the ocean, across the lake and into a channel
dug right through the hills, until it reaches the
locks at Pedro Miguel. Then it will be lowered
to a smaller lake five miles long, then down again
to the level of the Pacific. An east-bound ship
will reverse the process. Get the idea?”

“Sure. It sounds easy.”

“Oh, it’s simple enough. That’s
what makes it so big. We’ve been working
at it five years, and it will take five years more
to complete it. Before we began, the French had
spent about twenty years on the job. Now a word,
so you will have the general scheme of operation in
your head. The whole thing is run by the Isthmian
Canal Commission—­six men, most of whom are
at war with one another. There are really two
railroad systems—­the I. C. C., built to
haul dirt and rock and to handle materials in and out
of the workings, and the Panama Railroad, which was
built years ago during the California gold rush and
bought by our government at the time of that terrible
revolution I told you about. The latter is a
regular system, hauls passengers and freight, but the
two work together. You will start in with the
P. R. R., Mr. Anthony, under my despotic sway.”